Sometimes You Just Have to Wash the Car

I was getting down on my car for awhile. Living in Seattle, it’s fairly pointless to wash your car in the winter. It rains almost immediately and in a few days, your car is just as dingy as before. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with this car, and with transportation in general. I’m still waiting for transporters from Star Trek. I just want to think and be there. Climbing into a machine and driving on prepared surfaces just seems so…..last century. But for the time being I’m stuck with a decidedly 20th century transportation option: the automobile.

Last summer, my 2001 VW Bug finally gave up the ghost. When I bought it, there were questions around the transmission and how many years it might last. Add in a couple cross country trips and loads of driving around town and getting it to go in reverse was a prayer with every shift. A cracked rim that left me stranded in Boise, Idaho didn’t add to the hope of this car. I visited my foreign car mechanic. His shop stood against highway 99 in South Tacoma. He had been there since 1971, back when he only worked on VWs and sold Bosch parts for german drivers in America. He also had a small buy-here-pay-here lot. Everytime I went in for an oil change I kept an eye on the cars. Mostly, because I think I intuitively knew that my days of my blue diesel belching Beetle were numbered. He pronounced the transmission, “kaput” in his moderate german accent. I asked him if he still had the gorgeous black, 1981 Mercedes on his lot. He didn’t, he sold it the week before. But he had something “just as good.” She stood over on the far part of the lot, over by the old parts shop. That part of the cracked asphalt was mostly used as car storage or room for the detailers. The only cars for sail were the ones neatly lined up on the front two lines with paperwork hanging in the window. He pointed at her. “Her” was a 2001 Audi A6, midnight blue, quattro, a rare color, and in good condition. She had just had her timing belt, brakes, and dozens of other small repairs made. I had a mixed relationship with the car from the start. It was ok, even lovely. The steering was like a Cadillac I drove for a friend. It was easy and smooth.  I explained to him my financial situation. I wasn’t employed but I had money; I could manage it; and I always paid my debts. I might have also said something about my parents and being young (if you can call 28 young). In short, I could pay. So with a quick stroke of a pen I was in debted $5,800. I paid $1,200 down for a total purchase price of $7,000 with taxes, license, fees and etc. I paid him in cash and I always have. The Beetle earned me $200 towards the new car with the moonroof, the luxury leather seats and the ride like glass.

I had a tortured relationship with the car from the start. It’s hard to explain but sometimes life gives you something and you just don’t believe that you deserve something so nice. I also didn’t love the car. I liked it, it was ok but it wasn’t a dream boat for me. The piece about deserving something really special is especially when you haven’t suffered enough to “earn” nice things. The protestant work ethic is a wonderful thing but it can really screw up your self-worth and value of things. But, my name was on the line so I drove the car home and pulled into the driveway the first time. I took it, the next day, to CarToys and swapped out the factory head for something more modern that worked with my iPhone. I sold that stereo head to the head mechanic for $20. They couldn’t fit the new kit in right because some clips were missing. I had to drive to Olympia to get all the parts too. That was my first big trip in this big car. It seemed like a boat compared to my tiny Beetle. The bit of plastic above it that covers the lone cupholder and the emergency lights button sticks out a bit because of the bad fit. It was all rather strange. Then, the car sat for a couple days. I didn’t drive much in those days and I didn’t really want to drive it. But I resolved to take it on a road trip to Seattle. I wanted to see the Absolutely Fabulous movie and it wasn’t playing in Tacoma.

It was on that trip, a routine trip, that I smashed straight in the back of a red SUV. I left long skid marks across the pavement as I attempted to bring the 4,800 pound car to a stop. The SUV suffered almost no damage (I took pictures) but the front of my car released it’s fluids all over the ground and wouldn’t stay started try as I might to limp her off to the side. I suffered no injury of any kind. I mostly sat there in disbelief that I had just totaled my brand-new car. I gripped the steering wheel. 2 hours later I stood outside a junkyard where my car had been involuntarily impounded with a ticket for $87 (the officer helped me out), a business card from the tow truck driver and no ride home. I needed a place to gather my thoughts. I sat  on the patio furniture of a defunct cafe and tried to gather my thoughts. I opened my Progressive insurance app and uploaded all the info that I could. I filled out their forms and submitted my claim. They called me and after I talked with the claims department I found a number for a taxi and got home.

I didn’t tell my housemates about the car for 3 weeks until I finally posted on social media about the whole thing. That time was filled with dread, awful feelings, a lot of insurance calls, and a fateful decision to fix the car. I had a major writing conference a few days later. I rented a car to get back and forth and ended up not pitching any of my novels because I didn’t feel up to facing agents and editors. The insurance declared her dead, but neither I nor my car mechanic were so convinced. The body was wasn’t even damaged beyond the popped up hood. Hoods were easy to find. So, the insurance company towed my car to the same lot I bought her from and placed her in the driveway. I turned over my check from the insurance company and $2,000 to get work started. I had decided to fight for this car. She wasn’t finally and totally fixed until November, the accident happened in July. I spent months getting rides, renting cars, and spending hundreds on Uber getting around to do simply errands. If you don’t have a car, there is a science to structuring your life around bus/foot transportation. My life was structured around drive-thrus and quick errands with a car. Now, I learned to have groceries delivered and how to do as much online or over the phone before having to call for an uber or taxi and get around to physical places. I would save money by getting dropped off at major centers and walking around doing all my errands and then deciding between transit or uber on the way home.

After 6 weeks, I got the car back for the first time. It was a back and forth relationship until November when the car was really, finally, and truly done. I was grateful to have a working car at the end. I was not happy about the nuclear bomb to my finances it had been. I realized that if I was going to recover for all of this I had better seek out gainful employment. I need to rest and recover my finances. In that way, this car, the car that I only liked and bought because I knew a guy who would offer an otherwise unemployed artist a car loan, changed my life. I guess that’s why I’ve always had a difficult relationship with the car. It’s been wonderfully reliable through deliver for UberEats and on my long commutes to my job in Seattle. It’s comfortable and offers amenities that I never thought I would have.

I had gotten down on the car. I hadn’t really washed it since November and the new paint job that I had paid for was decidedly brown. I had bent my driver’s fender while on too much cold medicine to help a housemate get to work. So I just didn’t bother taking my dingy car with it’s bum fender to the car wash. The weeks dragged on and I just got tired of the car. I was thinking about what little trade-in value it might get for something else. Maybe I could find something good, something, just something else.

Then I decided, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, to stop by the car wash. I paid for the mid-level wash and the machine pulled me through the tunnel and I popped out the other side. I didn’t really think much about the wash until I got home. My dingy, brown, wheel stained, car was fresh and new. It was almost sexy. She’s pretty when she’s washed. All those feelings of negativity I had around my car faded away. I bought an interior kit and cleaned thoroughly. It brought me a whole new view of the car. I fell back in love with the car.

Sometimes, rather than change something, it’s important to renew your relationship with it. Take the time to clean the weird stain on the head rag. Take the time to wash off the brake dust on the wheels. Take the time to renew a situation before deciding that it all has to go and it has to be destroyed. I think this is true for so many things. How often do we simply get rid of something because it’s not what it used to be? Sometimes all we need to do is just wash the car.